“The Man with the Overcoat” by David Finkel— Following Clues

Skip Gerber is a 37-year-old lawyer was given an overcoat as he stood waiting for an elevator. When the doors opened, a strange man gave him an overcoat which he took without thinking. Only a few minutes later did he realize that we was standing there holding it and understanding that its owner was nowhere around. Now that Skip had the coat, he had no idea what to do with it.

Reaching in the pockets, he finds clues to whom the real owner of the coat is and he learns that he has a total of 24 hours to find the owner and return it to him. Along the way, he meets some really interesting people.

Skip is the focus of the novel. He is a man who sees to be a bit at sea as he gallivants (I love this word even though I rarely get a chance to use it) around and to the seediest area of the city. What he notices as he searches for the owner is that the coat is very much “him”.

The clues in the coat’s pockets lead him around town and he is also receiving strange phone calls—by his mother, Bernice, by Jerry, his broke brother and by Faye, Jerry’s snobby fiancée. Skip is helped by cab drivers who think that Skip is being tailed. He meets some who want to help him even though they do not know why he needs it. He runs into a group of drag queens who rename him Alice and he comes into contact with all kinds including a young women who saves him from robbers and who just might become the true love of his life. There are some really serious questions—“Where did this overcoat come from? Why are so many people interested in it? Has somebody been following him since the moment Skip put it on? And why are the gargoyles on the tops of buildings falling? Is it all a coincidence, or is the overcoat that has been placed in Skip’s care a dangerous talisman?”

I am not giving you the answers here so if you want to find out even if they can be answered, you will have to do so on your own. Skip has to step out of his everyday regimen and comfort zone and the good life that he thought he was actually going through. We are with him as he enters “the strange unknown.”